RAIL bosses say they have fixed a signalling issue between Slough and London Paddington that caused all services to be suspended on Wednesday and Thursday.

A second successive day of travel chaos happened yesterday evening (Thursday) when the signalling failure occurred.

Today operator of the track, Network Rail, said a temporary fix had been applied to the equipment and so far services were not being affected.

An investigation has been launched to find out why the failure happened roughly around the same time and on the same route during the two days. Network Rail said the problem appeared to surface around 5.10pm on Thursday and 6.15pm on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for Network Rail said: "The fix put in place was monitored all night (Thursday-Friday) and tested all night. It has remained stable all night and where several errors were found the parts were changed where required.

"There is one remaining minor issue which is not affecting the running but we are monitoring it and we have an alternative system in place if it does fail again."

The spokesperson added that the operator was going through its signalling probe 'with a fine toothcomb'.

A joint statement from Network Rail and Great Western Railway (GWR) said: "We would like to apologise to customers after a significant signal failure outside London Paddington last night, July 6, that prevented all trains running in to and out of the station for the second evening in a row.

"We fully recognise the scale of disruption to the many passengers who experienced difficulties travelling, and we are extremely sorry for the challenges it caused.

"Network Rail had teams on the ground to fix the problem as soon as possible, but it took considerably longer than we would have liked before the signalling was restored at 8.18pm, allowing GWR to start running trains again.

"Network Rail is now conducting an immediate investigation into the cause of this failure and putting in place additional measures to reinforce signalling equipment in the area until the results of the investigation are known, and a permanent solution is in place."

GWR said there had been some disruption this morning (Friday) as some of their trains were in the wrong place given the signalling failure the previous evening.